65 N.Y.S. 274 | N.Y. App. Div. | 1900
The action was brought to recover a sum of money which the plaintiff claims to be entitled to under what, is known as the Prevailing Rate of Wages Act. He alleges that he was employed by the city of New York as a rammer on the streets of that city, for which work he received three dollars a day, while the prevailing rate during that time for other laborers in New York was three dollars and fifty cents a day, and he asks to recover fifty cents -a •day for the time he was so employed. The demurrer was upon the ground that the complaint does not state facts sufficient to constitute a cause of action. The .question is simply whether the present statute, which provides that wages upon public work shall not be less than the pirevailing rate paid in the same calling in the locality where the work was performed, applies to protect those who are employed by a municipal corporation on public work as well as those who are employed by contractors to do like work for a City. The question is purely one of construction of the statute, arising from the changes which have taken place from time to time' in the Labor Law, so. called.
The first Labor Law was chapter 385 of the Laws of 1870. It fixed a legal day’s work at eight hours for all classes of mechanics, workmen and laborers, excepting those engaged in farm and domestic labor. Section 2 of that act provided that it should apply to “ all mechanics, workingmen and laborers now or hereafter employed by the State, or any municipal corporation therein, through its agents or officers, or in the employ of persons- contracting with the State or such corporation for performance of public works,” and the law provided penalties for its violation. But it contained no provision as to the rate of wages to be paid to these men. The law remained in that condition .until 1894, when section-2 was amended by inserting the provision that all persons of the classes named should receive not less than the prevailing rate of wages in the respective trades or callings in which such persons in those trades received in the locality. The law as amended made no change with regard to its applicability to the State and municipal corporations and contractors with them upon public-works. That statute continued in force until the passage of the Labor Law in 1897, being chapter 32 of the General Laws and chapter 415 of the Laws of 1897. The phraseology of
The work of the plaintiff was done after that amendment took effect; and the question is whether by a fair construction of the Labor Law in the form which it then had (Chap. 567, Laws of 1899) so much .of that statute as required the payment by the State or a municipal corporation of the prevailing rate of wages, has been repealed. In considering that question we must bear in mind the ]32’0vision of the Statutoi’y Construction Law to the effect that the-provisions of a law repealing a prior law which is a substantial re-enactment of the prior law, should be construed as a continuation of the prior law and not as a new enact2nent. (Stat. Const. Law,. Laws of 1892, chap. 677, § 32.) The amendment of 1899 is a mere re-enactment in a different form-of the former law, so that the rule-. of construction will apply that a mere change in the phraseology or in the arrangement or division of the sections of an antecedent law,, will not be construed as a change in the law unless the alteration is such as evidently purports a legislative intent to woi’k such a change. (Davis v. Davis, 75 N. Y. 221; Matter of Prime, 136 id. 347.) When the provisions of a foi'mer law are substantially contained in a later one, although in a different connection or in different phraseology, it will not be supposed that there was any change in the meaning intended unless the presumption of an intent to change necessarily arises. In view of these well-settled . rules of construction let us examine the act in question.
It is an act to amend the Labor Law, and it. amends section 3 of that act, which is the section under consideration, in the following pai’ticula2’s: It fii’st enacts that eight hours shall constitute a legal day’s work except in certain cases; then in addition, it pix>vides, “ This section does not prevent a2i agreement for overwork at an increased compensation, except upon work by. or for the state or a municipal coi’porat'ion. or by contractors or sub-cont2vacto2's therewith.” The 2iecessai’y infe2'ence from that - provision is that not only .upon such public work as is spoken of in that section
To ascertain that we must go back to see where in the statute the work which is referred to' is first spoken of, because if we find that it is there mentioned in such a way as to involve a definition of it, it is then fairly to be assumed that as so defined it will mean the work here referred to. Going back to the 2d sentence of the section, we find that it speaks of work by or for the State and by or for a municipal corporatidn and contractors therewith. ■ This is all public work and it is just what is included in the term “ public work ” as used in the former statute. No matter whether it is done by the State or a municipal corporation or for the.State or a municipal corporation, or by contractors with the same purpose, it all is included.
The policy of the law is that laborers, mechanics and workmen employed upon public work shall receive the prevailing rate of wages paid in the locality where they are employed. That policy is just as important with respect to men who are employed by a'city as it is with respect to men who are employed by a contractor on work for the city. In each case the intent is to insure those laborers the same amount of wages which it has been found necessary to pay to secure the services of other men at the same sort of work, and to insure the payment to public laborers of the same wages which other men in the 'same locality, at similar work, are accustomed to receive. The intention of the law is the thing to be sought and that is to be ascertained from the cause of the statute, and the policy, as indicated by prior statutes, and where that is found no mere form of words should prevent its adoption, unless the fonn forbids such a. construction. (People ex rel. Wood v. Lacombe, 99 N. Y. 43, 49.) To- carry out the intent of the law, it is just as necessary that those rates of wages be paid by the city .as- that they should be paid by the contractor. That clearly was required by the law of 1897, and I can see no reason, as the policy of the law in 1899 is the same, and as- the law of 1899 contained substantially the same provisions as did the law of 1897, why it should be construed to mean differently.
For these reasons, it seems to me that the act of 1899 worked no change in the law, and that the duty which the act of 1897 imposed upon the city to pay the prevailing rate of. wages still exists, and, therefore, that the plaintiff is entitled to recover. The interlocutory judgment should, therefore, be reversed, with costs, and judgment
Van Brunt, P. J., Ingraham and McLaughlin, JJ., concurred.
Judgment reversed, with costs, and judgment ordered overruling demurrer, with costs to . plaintiff, with leave to the defendant to withdraw demurrer and answer over on payment of costs in this court and in the court below.